After a few weeks with my Artiphon Instrument1, I must say that I love the thing. It is a fantastic blend of so many playing styles and offers such a wide range of possibilities. The frets and bridge feel great to play. It is certainly built with quality and a whole lot of elegant design.
But I really struggle with a few areas where I think the design choices are limiting its ability to be a grown-up instrument for real musicians.
Here is my list of list of suggestions:
-
The Instrument1 is permanently a slave to an off-board sound generator. I wish the Instrument1 could store a few sound profiles onboard so it did not permanently have to connect to an iOS or MIDI device. Ideally, Iād like it to be 100% wireless. But the Instrument1 is the opposite: I have to carry around a separate device, which must be wired in at all times, just to play anything. -
The sounds that come with the app are few and quite lame. There are so many free or low-cost sound apps available on the app store, couldnāt Artiphon have bundled at least 50-100 pro-quality sounds into their app? Instead, it forces just about every user to have to go outside of Artiphon software to make it a viable instrument. -
The neck is too wide. I understand there is a trade-off: a very narrow neck makes keyboard/tapping mode more difficult. But making the neck too wide makes guitar muscle memory less portable to the instrument. I think the instrument design went too wide. For instance, any guitar chords that involve hooking a thumb over the top string are pretty much impossible on the Instrument1 due to the width. -
No Ā¼ā jack. I would like the ability to plug an instrument cable into the Artiphon and just play, just like any guitar, keyboard, or pretty much any other electric instrument. -
The volume knob/mode selector and power button are too easily bumped during normal play. Playing the Instrument1 in guitar method, Iāve often bumped the volume knob with my wrist, causing the instrument to accidentally switch modes. I like the clean look of the Instrument1ās controls, but most professional guitars and keyboards do a better job of keeping their controls out of the way. The power button can similarly be accidentally bumped. When playing the Instrument1 in guitar mode, I curl a couple fingers under the edge near the bridge to hold that end up. Every once in a while, I bump the power button which is a disaster if youāre trying to gig with the instrument. A hard sliding switch wouldāve been a better choice in my opinion. -
Why not a traditional strap connector? Keytars and guitars seem to do just fine with the knob-style strap connectors. Why wouldnāt Instrument1 use that standard? Instead, I need a special strap for it -- not ideal. -
No Bluetooth MIDI? Iām rather surprised that this brand new innovative device did not include Bluetooth MIDI, like many of the emerging controllers on the market. -
What does the accelerometer do? I see on the box and the specs that the Instrument1 has an accelerometer. What is that used for? I wish there was a way to use that (or other means) to control expression such as a pitch bend or vibrato. But maybe that is coming in subsequent software updates. -
Battery level ā There is not a good way to see how much batter is left, that I know of. I think the power light changes color if it is really about to die. But there isnāt much info beyond that. I think it would be nifty if, when you first turn on the device, it lights up the Capo lights based on how much battery life is left. -
Iād prefer mini-USB power. Iāll admit Iām just being picky here. But I canāt stand devices that require me to keep track of their own special adapters. Iād much prefer that the Instrument1 charge its battery by mini-USB or Lightning, so that I could easily power it up using existing cables.
Thoughts?
)